When I first heard of it, I was pretty eye-rolly about its apparent treatment of canon, but honestly its by far the richest interpretation of Lord of the Rings that's been released in video game form. It's not a trite re-telling of the trilogy from the viewpoint of some two-bit actors like Third Age, and it's not a boring, cash-grab of a theme park like LotRO.

What it is is a completely fresh take, with a plausibly Tolkien 'hero'. There's definitely some things that defy canon (and the entire premise defies an explicit statement by Tolkien that no one except Beren has ever returned from the dead), but in general from what I've played so far it's quite chock full of little bits of lore.

My favorite part of it is the portrayal of Orcs, which is better than anything that's been done previously, in any media. They're evil, but not utterly mindless. They're brutal, but not complete caricatures (with some exceptions). They're cunning, manipulative bastards.

I'd definitely recommend checking the game out if you've got a next-gen console or a beefy PC.

Hawkwind wrote:Glad to hear such, I've been watching it on and off. Heard the Studio actually had a lawsuit about nigh identical character movement or some such.

How is the freeform/sandbox aspect of it?

I spent about 8 hours in the first area, I'm not entirely sure how many there are total... but I haven't even touched on the over-arching metagame yet. The open world is pretty static, it's an open world in the sense that you can go anywhere and stab orcs, but the nemesis system makes it very fresh, in that Orcs get promoted based on who you kill. Your character's immortal, and if an orc kills you, he'll grow in power and possibly become a leader himself even if he was previously just a nameless mook.

20 hours makes sense, there are only 20 main missions after all..but, I feel like your friend didn't play enough Assassin's Creed: Orc Murder. I probably spent 15 hours straight just running around, fighting Captains and all the hordes before I got around to doing a mission.

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I bet the main quest in 15 hours, but still have plenty of side stuff to do. And even if I'd finished every sidequest, the game is open-ended enough to give you plenty of self-motivated achievements to go after.

Maybe I'm getting old, but I like actually getting to finish games I play without them requiring 200 hours of playtime. Sinking that much into a game is really difficult to fit between work, eating, and sleeping.

Holmes wrote:Maybe I'm getting old, but I like actually getting to finish games I play without them requiring 200 hours of playtime. Sinking that much into a game is really difficult to fit between work, eating, and sleeping.

I can't help it. I've always liked suici..solo attacking orc forts and this game has plenty of strongholds.

But, I feel ya. I can't get through all of games like Skyrim. Luckily this one can be 100% finished in like 30 or 40 hours.

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Eugene wrote:My friends beat it and near 100-percented it in under 20 hours. Would not buy.

Since when is 20 hours a bad amount of time for a triple A game?

Post 2005 I think, before then they came finished and did not often require a season pass or day 1 DLC.

Pretty much this. If we're talking about a game that has a definitive start and finish and is not free-roam or multiplayer, they typically took you more than 20 hours to complete unless you were particularly good at it or if the game was designed to be that short.

Eugene wrote:My friends beat it and near 100-percented it in under 20 hours. Would not buy.

Since when is 20 hours a bad amount of time for a triple A game?

Post 2005 I think, before then they came finished and did not often require a season pass or day 1 DLC.

those were the days. At least we still have dwarf fortress

A really bad sword with a short blade lies here.
look sword
This sword hardly even a sword. It's kind of really just a piece of metal bent like a sword. Its blade is rather short. Kind of pathetic, really.

Holmes wrote:
Since when is 20 hours a bad amount of time for a triple A game?

Post 2005 I think, before then they came finished and did not often require a season pass or day 1 DLC.

Pretty much this. If we're talking about a game that has a definitive start and finish and is not free-roam or multiplayer, they typically took you more than 20 hours to complete unless you were particularly good at it or if the game was designed to be that short.

This is pretty ignorant of how quick and short a lot of fps games were, and various action games as well. Often the only difference in total content for a lot of these games was skill and artificial difficulty. Games of the action variety aren't shorter in a lot of ways, especially considering the punishing difficulty. Take a look at Megaman games. Legend of Zelda? Metroid? GoldenEye? Turn these games on the higher difficulties right from the start, then you'll see higher levels of playtime. Content for content, though...your arguments aren't as strong as they just populist. That's even ignoring the ever increasing complexity of development itself.

I've bought a couple day one DLCs. I've never been dissatisfied. I've also played games without buying the day one DOC and been perfectly happy going without. As ever, vote with your wallet.

tehkory wrote:This is pretty ignorant of how quick and short a lot of fps games were, and various action games as well. Often the only difference in total content for a lot of these games was skill and artificial difficulty. Games of the action variety aren't shorter in a lot of ways, especially considering the punishing difficulty. Take a look at Megaman games. Legend of Zelda? Metroid? GoldenEye? Turn these games on the higher difficulties right from the start, then you'll see higher levels of playtime. Content for content, though...your arguments aren't as strong as they just populist. That's even ignoring the ever increasing complexity of development itself.

I've bought a couple day one DLCs. I've never been dissatisfied. I've also played games without buying the day one DOC and been perfectly happy going without. As ever, vote with your wallet.

Never did I think that criticizing the current state of game design and development would get me labeled as a "populist."

radioactivejesus wrote:those were the days. At least we still have dwarf fortress

I was looking forward to this game a HUGE amount, and I have to admit to being a bit disappointed in it. I guess I expected more of an RPG element to it, more world-depth, etc. I dislike the fact that there is literally no way to save a game or even go back to a checkpoint, that every death has a consequence in that the captains get stronger, and I also find it extremely frustrating when I'm focusing on killing one captain (and fifteen of his friends) and then three more captains show up.

But as frustrated as I am, and despite it being the middle of midterms, I keep picking it back up again. I guess my question is, does it get better or does it mostly stay like this? And I'm speaking as a huge fan of the AC franchise.